Corporate greed is exemplified by Mattel's latest moves. Last week, Mattel announced the closing of a Kentucky manufacturing and distribution plant ["Mattel Will Shut Last U.S. Manufacturing Site," April 4]. This puts an additional 900-plus Americans out of work. This week, Mattel announced compensation of more than $12 million to its new executive for seven months on the job ["Mattel CEO Earned $12.5 Million in 2000," April 10]. Obviously he earned it by downsizing Americans for cheap labor outside the country that buys the company's toys.

The $4-million advertising account for Mattel Toys U.S.A.'s Hot Wheels toy cars apparently proved too hot to handle for New York-based Dailey & Associates, whose oversight of the account lasted less than a year. Although Dailey made several commercials for Mattel during its 11-month stint on the Mattel toy account, creative differences produced friction between the agency and Mattel, a Dailey official said. Mattel officials refused to comment on the split.

Mattel Inc. identified the Chinese vendor that made nearly 1 million Fisher-Price toys that were recalled last week because they might contain lead. El Segundo-based Mattel said Lee Der Industrial Co. in Guangdong province made the 967,000 toys sold in the U.S. between May and this month. Mattel last week recalled the plastic preschool toys, including popular Big Bird, Elmo and Dora characters, because they were made with paint found to have excessive amounts of lead.

Mattel Inc. on Friday won a judge's permission to proceed with copyright-infringement claims against MGA Entertainment Inc. and Carter Bryant, the designer of MGA's Bratz dolls. U.S. District Judge Stephen Larson, in an order filed in Riverside, agreed that Mattel's 1999 agreement with Bryant, a former employee, wasn't ambiguous and that the company could claim rights to work he did while at Mattel. "The inventions agreement explicitly conveys to Mattel an employee's interest in any copyrights or copyright applications," Larson said in his ruling.

Mattel Inc., Hawthorne, said it has named John W. Amerman to the posts of chairman and chief executive. Amerman, 55, had been president of Mattel's highly successful international division. The appointment of Amerman marks the dissolution of Mattel's three-man executive committee, which was announced in October in preparation for the Dec. 31 retirement of Chairman Arthur S. Spear.

Mattel, the maker of Barbie dolls, Hot Wheels and other toys, said it has completed its latest round of layoffs to reduce costs and that 178 headquarters employees, including six vice presidents, lost their jobs. The Hawthorne toy company expects to save $10 million this year as a result of the cutbacks, said Spencer Boise, a Mattel vice president. The layoffs, which began in early December, reduce Mattel's headquarters staff to 1,720 from 2,200 at the end of 1986.

Raymond W. Ferris, 56, has left his job as executive vice president for strategic planning at Mattel in what the toy company described as a "mutual decision." Ferris, a 15-year veteran of Mattel's executive ranks, also resigned from the company's board . A Mattel spokesman said Ferris "planned himself out of a job." The spokesman, Shel Holtz, said Ferris came up with a plan for Hawthorne-based Mattel that called for the elimination of his own job and that the plan was accepted.

I am deeply disturbed that Mattel's board of directors would approve such a disgraceful severance package for Matthew Bousquette ("Ex-Executive to Receive $6.9 Million From Mattel," Dec. 29). The board's decision reflects a total disregard for equity at a time when some Mattel employees have been laid off and our society is in the midst of a crisis of a growing gap between the haves and the have-nots. As a society we need to find equitable solutions to this disgraceful, if not unethical, decision making.

Mattel Inc., the world's largest toy maker, reported lower-than-expected third-quarter results Monday but said it was confident that toys would still be hot items during the upcoming holiday shopping season. "As I've said during past times of high anxiety, my bet is there will be a Christmas," Mattel Chief Executive Robert A. Eckert told analysts. "That's not to make light of the concerns, because they're real." Mattel's third-quarter profit rose less than 1%, to $238.1 million from $236.